Follow PR Daily on:

Chicken McNugget shapes have official names

Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.

Whether it’s an animal cracker, a sour gummy worm, SpongeBob Macaroni and Cheese, or the seasonal Reese’s Easter egg, foods shaped like other things just taste better. No wonder there's been so much fondness for the McNugget all this time.

After years of Happy Meal-er hearsay, Business Insider went behind the scenes at McDonald’s Oak Park, Ill., headquarters, where it learned that those tastily battered chicken chunks are actually fashioned in four different shapes. In fact, they even have official names: boot, bone, bell, and ball—except in Canada, where they call the “bone” a “bow-tie.” (via Consumerist)

It’s the McDonald’s fries, however, that are angering fast food eaters in parts of Asia. According to Gawker, the so-called “potato party” trend consists of kids buying ridiculous amounts of fries and spreading them "feast-style" across multiple trays—and in the process, delaying other patrons’ orders. Staffers at one South Korean location were so vexed by the wasteful prank they ordered the “brats” to leave.

And to think, the best McDonald’s stunt we in the States is disgracing whatever new “Angus” beef sign was put up—a sign like the purported transit ad riding around the Big Apple and recently shared by The New York Egotist.

Meanwhile, fast food chains Wendy’s and Subway are hoping to keep up with modern industry trends by revamping their respective restaurants. Reports New York Daily News, both companies are testing more upscale environs, which include lounge-like settings and in-store fireplaces.

Sadly, fire was most likely the word of the day around the offices of BuzzFeed, where All Things D reports a restructuring of a different kind will lead to 20 percent of the Web publisher’s staff being laid-off and replaced with new hires.

Speaking of Twitter, according to WPP Group chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, the social network isn’t an advertising medium, but rather, one for PR. Read more of his comments on the matter at The Wall.

In that case, it makes sense that as predicted, Twitter’s newest video app, Vine, would soon be used by PR professionals. PRNewser reports that this tweet from Sonar welcoming new investors might be the world’s first Vine press release:

In another first, Ragan.com reports how Hewlett Packard became the first company to reach 1 million followers on LinkedIn.

That wasn’t enough, however, to top Apple on Fortune’s list of the world’s most admired companies. According to Mac Rumors, this is the sixth year in a row that the tech giant has claimed the No. 1 spot, with Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks rounding out the top five.

Hopefully, Skechers wasn’t expecting to make the list. The Los Angeles Times reports that the brand is being bashed by parenting groups after promoting a new sneaker for teen girls called “Daddy’$ Money.”

Perhaps nor should “Girls Gone Wild” after the company behind the controversial video franchise filed for bankruptcy. According to Bloomberg, the move protects the company from a $10.3 million debt claim by Steve Wynn’s Wynn Las Vegas LLC, as well as $5.8 million awarded to a woman claiming the company used naked images of her without permission.

It was Bloomberg’s racy—or racist, more accurately—cover of Businessweek that grabbed headlines elsewhere and incited controversy across the Internet. Reporting on the housing crisis, the publication used caricatures portraying a “busty, sassy Latina” and a “barefooted black man waving cash out his window” for its cover. Explains The Atlantic:

“… the magazine seems to be suggesting that free-spending minorities who should never have been given mortgages during the last housing bubble are now at it again, pumping their houses for straight cash.”